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Gender and Sexuality

17 Dec 2020 Canadian-based site Pornhub under fire

Posted at 10:29h in Action Items, Action Story, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments
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  (At the bottom of this article is a call to action: Please sign the petition sponsored by MP Arnold Viersen in the House of Commons asking the government to act to protect young people from exposure to pornography.) In a year where good news has been in short supply, it is wonderful to see rapid positive developments on an issue that we've been concerned about for a long time. An exposé post in The New York Times targeted Pornhub, a Canadian based for-profit pornography business. The article highlighted major problems relating...

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01 Oct 2020 Federal Liberals retable criminal ban on “conversion therapy” with major legal implications for pastoral ministry

Posted at 16:30h in Bills and Motions, Criminal Justice, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments
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On October 1, 2020 the federal Liberal government tabled Bill C-6 (which was before Parliament earlier this year as Bill C-8). The bill defines conversion therapy as any “practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour.” In case that is unclear, let me apply it directly to the pastoral work of the church. This bill, if passed as written, would make it a criminal offence to help a person struggling with...

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18 Sep 2020 Look out Albertans! Bylaw Bob coming to a religious gathering near you!

Posted at 14:10h in Blog, Fundamental Freedoms, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments
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By: Ed Hoogerdyk A wave of conversion therapy bans has spread across the province of Alberta. Maybe not as fast as COVID-19, but fast enough. These by-laws are harsh and heavy-handed. Yet one municipality after another passed them with relative ease. Fort McMurray. St. Albert. Edmonton. Spruce Grove. Rocky Mountain House. And finally Calgary and Lethbridge. Many concerned citizens spoke out. The largest pushback took place in Calgary. There were phone calls, face to face meetings, Zoom teleconferences, and a public hearing with a record number of oral submissions from the...

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08 Sep 2020 A Bubble Zone for Preaching in Vancouver?

Posted at 13:16h in Blog, Fundamental Freedoms, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments
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By Levi Minderhoud David Lynn has come to British Columbia. Kicking off his national tour, the street preacher from Christ’s Forgiveness Ministries wandered the thoroughfares of Victoria and Vancouver last week, preaching the truth of Scripture with a microphone in hand and a stereo speaker at his side. A scene like this is bound to attract some attention. Sadly, the attention of our LGBTQ-fixated society has been universally negative. This reaction underscores the need for Christians to proclaim and live the gospel. Last year on Fall Tour we touched on pastor David...

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04 Aug 2020 CBC’s strategic attack on Redeemer University

Posted at 20:11h in Blog, Education, Gender and Sexuality 1 Comment
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CBC is at it again. Last week, I explained how CBC’s reporting on a videographer’s decision to decline to film a same-sex wedding was designed to advance a particular narrative: that governments and society still have a lot of work to do to combat homophobia. This week, in a piece posing as investigative journalism, CBC bolsters this narrative and suggests next steps in the progressive battle against homophobia, namely: suing, defunding, and disaccrediting Christian schools. CBC targets Redeemer University, whose code of conduct forbids sexual intimacy outside of (heterosexual) marriage. Framing...

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29 Jul 2020 A Christian wedding videographer and the media’s homophobia narrative

Posted at 11:36h in Blog, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments
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by John Sikkema On July 20, Ms. Hamstra, who operates Caramount Pictures, replied to an email request from Ms. Roberts and Ms. Arthur to be the videographer for their wedding. “I say this with much care,” Hamstra wrote, “because I know your union is incredibly important to you, but we do not film homosexual weddings.” CBC released a story on this email exchange the very next day. “The refusal came 15 years to the day after Canada legalized same-sex marriage,” CBC highlights, as if the videographer planned this for maximal symbolic impact....

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16 Jun 2020 Smithers Residents Launch Letter-Writing Campaign to Town Council

Posted at 14:48h in Action Story, Blog, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments
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by Levi Minderhoud You are ARPA. ARPA is you. This tagline from ARPA’s intro video means that ARPA isn’t just made up of the staff members who work full-time for the organization. ARPA, fundamentally, is a grassroots network of people who take political action to bring a Biblical perspective to our civil authorities. ARPA members and supporters in Smithers last week demonstrated what effective political action looks like. A few years ago, the town of Smithers agreed to install a rainbow crosswalk to promote the LGBTQ cause. At the time, local ARPA supporters and...

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02 Jun 2020 Funding for Victims of Human Trafficking Quietly Removed

Posted at 16:42h in Blog, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments
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  In the midst of the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, the Canadian federal government has quietly removed funding for several programs that work with sex trafficking survivors. The London Abused Women's Center released a press release on May 12th announcing that federal funding for their organization and others had been eliminated. Here is a portion of what they released: After waiting for months and repeatedly contacting the Justice Department, organizations across Canada providing long-term support to trafficked, prostituted and sexually exploited women and girls discovered their funding proposals submitted to the Justice Department...

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07 May 2020 A Good News Story for Victims of Sexual Exploitation

Posted at 12:56h in Blog, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments
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Good news in Alberta! Bill 8: Protecting Survivors of Human Trafficking Act has recently been tabled. The goal of the bill is to protect survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. In short, the bill helps victims of human trafficking. There are some highlights worth noting: A judge has the ability to grant a protection order to the victim, which means the trafficker cannot get close to, speak to or engage with the victim. The bill adds a tort. A tort refers to a civil clause that allows the victim...

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11 Mar 2020 Federal Government Introduces Bill to Ban “Conversion Therapy”

Posted at 13:19h in Bills and Motions, Criminal Justice, Gender and Sexuality, Uncategorised 1 Comment
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The federal Liberal government, as promised in their election platform, introduced a bill this week to criminally ban “conversion therapy” nation-wide. Bill C-8 defines conversion therapy as any “practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour,” but not services or treatments related to a person’s “gender transition” or to a person’s “exploration of their identity”. Most of the legislation talks about how conversion therapy would be regulated. The legislation proposes to ban...

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